Will buyers bite the offer bait?

Geetu Vaid

Hope is riding high this festive season as market experts and developers are expecting buyers to shed their reluctance and finalise home deals. The slowdown hit sector is expecting a revival of sorts by the year end. According to CBRE South Asia Head, Residential Services India AS Sivaramakrishnan the sale volumes are likely to rise over the next couple of months. “Traditionally, the festive season is considered an auspicious time for buying properties. Developers use this time to launch schemes and offers, around their projects, to attract the end-user to boost sales," he adds. This being the first festive period after the implementation of major policy reforms of RERA and GST, the market experts are expecting better response from the prospective buyers. “We expect this festive season to do better than last year as developers are now offering a lot of freebies and discounts to clear their earlier stock as well as selectively launching new projects. There is sufficient unsold inventory in the market which is nearing completion. Developers, after tackling RERA and ensuring compliance, are now launching new projects. There is definitely solid demand for ready-to-move-in properties”, said Samir Jasuja, CEO & Founder, PropEquity.  “We are expecting this festive season to push sales by at least 20 per cent over the previous festive season”, says Kushagra Ansal, Director, Ansal Housing. 

Offers by the dozen

As the festival season sets in there is no denying the fact that a large number of developers are cash strapped and also jostling with the RERA rules and GST rigmarole. But sensing an increase in demand during this period several realty players are investing in marketing and sales campaigns to woo buyers. Lining up festival discounts and offers has almost become a ritual in the realty sector over the years and this year is no exception. However, this year apart from the usual ones these offers also include the ones wherein the developer is holding out his hand to share the financial burden of the buyer. For example NCR-based ABA Corp will be sharing the burden of GST with the buyers on booking an apartment in Greater Noida (west) located Cherry County. The builder will bear 50 per cent of the GST liability on the buyers, said Amit Modi, Director, ABA Corp.  “In fact, we have also gone ahead to make sure that the stamp duty charges availed by the consumers is also paid by us, ” said Modi who is also the Vice President of CREDAI Western UP. Nirala World group that has projects in Greater Noida, is offering 100 per cent waiver on stamp duty charges, registration fee, legal charge, GST and lease rent. “We are also offering free covered car parking, free club membership and free one- year maintenance”, said Suresh Garg, CMD Nirala World. 

NCR-based Exotica Housing is offering free home appliances like; LED TV, Refrigerator, AC to  new buyers in Fresco and Dreamville project on Noida Expressway and Greater Noida, respectively. Another NCR-based developer Hawelia Group is offering ‘ i Phone’ during Navratras on every booking at two of its projects — Hawelia Valencia Homes (Ready–to-Move-In flats) and Hawelia Valenova Park – in Noida Extension (GRENO).

With online deals gaining momentum, several developers are also associating with realty portals to offer attractive discounts to buyers through online schemes. Realty platform Housing.com, launched ‘Home Utsav’(fromSeptember 28 to October 28) and will present special offers and deals from renowned developers across the country.  The festival will showcase 200+ selected projects from more than 100 reputed developers across India. Home Utsav will offer lucrative deals with special incentives to buyers in case of immediate bookings. Some of the exclusive offers  include a European holiday for couples, GST waivers, Diwali gift hampers worth Rs 1 lakh, etc

Puravankara Ltd. had pre-festive ‘Big 72 hrs Online Home Fest’ from the Sept.15 -17 in Bangalore, Chennai and Dubai. “Buyers could purchase Big 72 online refundable vouchers by paying Rs 720 and blocking the Big 72 Hours special prices for an entire month, across both our brands – Puravankara and Provident”, said Ashish R Puravankara, Managing Director at Puravankara Limited. 

Though in the tricity, the story is a bit different. A cross section of developers in the tricity area when asked about any special festival offers for homebuyers, gave an unenthusiastic response. And the few offers mentioned were not too inviting either.

Buyers bide their time

In spite of the positive outlook and policy reforms, the end users’ apprehensions and concerns are far from over. “I have been waiting for the situation to stabilise in the property market for almost a year now, but things are not yet clear regarding RERA compliance as well as GST liability, so I will wait a bit more”, says 40 -something PSU employee Rameshwar Singh, who has beenchecking out NCR market for a three-BHK apartment. Same is the case with Smriti Sahni, who works in a private IT company in Mohali as she shares, “My husband and I had planned to purchase an independent floor in the Landran road area, we had even zeroed in on a few projects and were looking for some festive season offers. But we have been advised by friends and family to wait till there is clarity about RERA compliance by the builders as many of them have got their projects exempted and we don’t want our money to be stuck due to delays.”

When quizzed whether they would be tempted by the festive offers, both of them maintained that the issues of developer’s commitment to timely delivery,   transparency and affordability are more important than the offer of freebies  and schemes that they advertise during this time each year.